Is Olivia Newton-John’s Missing Lover Patrick McDermott Living A Secret Life In Mexico?

On June 30, 2005, Olivia Newton John’s ex-lover Patrick McDermott disappeared without a trace from a boat called Freedom during a fishing trip off the coast of San Pedro, California.

Olivia Newton-John [screenshot]

A U.S. Coast Guard investigation determined that the freelance lighting technician, who dated Newton-John for nine years and split with the star shortly before his disappearance, had most likely drowned. But ever since then, rumors have swirled that he may have faked his own death and be living with a secret German wife — and tabloids have reported sightings of him in Central America and Mexico.

Now private investigator Philip Klein has claimed that golfer Greg Norman believes McDermott’s ex-wife Yvette Nipar, 52, has information about McDermott’s location that she’s keeping secret from Newton-John. Klein says McDermott, who would now be 59, is alive and living in Mexico.

Norman, who has been friends with the Grease star for years, allegedly suggested that Yvette knew that her ex-husband planned to fake his death and head south.

Investigators discovered shortly after McDermott’s disappearance that he had filed for bankruptcy and had unpaid debts totaling more than $30,000 — including $8,000 in child support owed to Yvette. McDermott had also secured a second passport in his birth name, Patrick Kim, and withdrew life savings from two bank accounts just before he vanished.

Nick Paps, an Australian reporter based in Los Angeles, told Dateline in 2009 that he discovered another important detail: According to the Freedom‘s galley tab, McDermott ordered a hot dog and two sodas and paid five dollars — but Paps said that the tab is only calculated in the last hour of the boat trip.

“From that point back to this dock, it’s almost a million to one odds that a guy could fall overboard, jump overboard, be pushed overboard, without half of the boat seeing it,” marina manager Frank Liversedge told Dateline.

The Freedom [DailyMail.com (screenshot)]

According to Klein, McDermott faked his death so that Chance, his 24-year-old son with Yvette, could claim his $120,000 life insurance.

“I think she knew what was going on, I think she knew he went down to Mexico,” the PI told Woman’s Day magazine. “Greg Norman called me a long time ago. He said it was a bad situation, and there were people in his camp that felt Yvette was using Olivia.”

Olivia is currently happily married to John Easterling, 64, and recently said that she struggled to put McDermott’s death behind her and get closure. Norman’s rep told Daily Mail Australia that the golfer had never spoken “about the whereabouts of Patrick McDermott.”